Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a method, and a storage medium storing a program.
Description of the Related Art
A service is recently known which allows a user to customize merchandise as he/she likes on a terminal (to be referred to as a client terminal hereinafter) such as a PC or a tablet PC used by the user and order the customized merchandise. An example of the service is a photo album service. To use the photo album service, a user first lays out image data stored on a client terminal or still image data extracted from moving image data to create a photo album. The user then uploads the created photo album data via a communication network such as the Internet to a management service that manages data associated with the photo album service. After that, the user accesses the order acceptance screen of the photo album service via a web browser or the like and performs order processing. In a case where the order processing is executed, the management service that has received the photo album data instructs a laboratory where a printer is placed to manufacture and ship the photo album, and the photo album is thus sent to a delivery destination designated by the user.
In the service that allows the user to order the customized merchandise, a management service that manages the data associated with the merchandise is needed to accept the data created by the user or instruct the laboratory to make the merchandise. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-004077 describes a technique of accepting image data and an order from a user terminal and causing a laboratory system to make a product according to the order.
In the system described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-004077, however, a management service that manages photo album data and an order acceptance service that processes an order are constructed as one system existing in the same network. That is, the management service described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-004077 supports only one order acceptance service (online store service) in the same network but does not support a plurality of different order acceptance services.